There is a lot of discussion and chatter on ‘Soul-mates’ and Twin-flames’ on Facebook and other social media. People are managing to find other people who share their ‘soul-stories’ and stuff. Karmic love stories and Karmic relationships! It sounds so romantic, being connected since several lives and remembering who exactly we were back then for each other.

But the way I see it on Facebook, ‘twin flames’ seems more a reason to make out rather than a way of balancing Karma.

All our relationships are karmic. Whoever we meet, even for one second, has met us because of Karma. If we give Rs 5/- to a beggar it is not because of the goodness of our heart but because we owe him that money from our past lives.

Someone I know had one rather traumatic experience recently, in a flight he was seated next to a man with a completely tattered aura. An alcoholic, drug-addict and a womanizer. In flight seats, the auras connect deeply as the arms touch at the seat’s arm-rests. The flight was full, so there was no option of sitting elsewhere. This person couldn’t do anything to protect himself from such a close contact, such a dirty aura touching him and had to endure for the 1.5hrs of travel time. The fellow traveller was sub-consciously requesting energy and this person’s higher self was giving it. It drained him and he ended up with a heavy skin rash and indigestion that lasted for 2 days. This was his Karma to help and suffer for it.

We all remember our past lives to a limited extent in the conscious awake states and almost completely in the sub-conscious states. If the planetary positions permit you can remember the events from the past life easily. It is the navamsha kundali at work. The 9^thdivisional chart is the resources that we have gathered over our innumerable lifetimes. It is here that we keep track of all our past lives, the experiences and the karmic burdens. The D-1 birth chart, is the manifested reality, just a small part of the D-9.

I have had several clients who remember their past lives and their exact relationship with some other person who is alive and around them. A common thread was that they had very powerful Rahu and Ketu. And all were doing some personal regular spiritual practice. After they saw these memories and came to terms with these, their spiritual practice improved dramatically. A few examples may be interesting to read, thus recounting.

• A 44yr old man remembers his daughter. A 25yr old wife of his business partner was his daughter from a past life. He was very strict with his daughter and didn’t pamper her, he regrets it, so in this life he makes it a point to buy the young woman some small presents and also for her baby also from time to time. He is balancing his Karma. Surprisingly she too thinks of him as a fatherly figure despite having no spiritual base in this life.
• A client remembers his present birth mother being his mother in several of his past lives. In one past the mother tortured his wife to death and my client turned into an alcoholic and died in trauma. In another this mother had my client as a daughter and promptly sacrificed her to a goddess. In another this same mother was a male tantric who killed my client and trapped his spirit to perform his tasks in the astral realm. This was a very toxic relationship for my client even in this current life. But knowing about this past helped him to find his personal balance.
• Another client remembers his current wife being his best friend in several past life, both were men together, and in one life both were male sanyasis. He even remembers how they looked like and where they were living. This helped him and his wife make more sense of their marriage.
• Once saw a vision one of my clients as a small girl playing with her sister in some past life. This sister died as a child so was buried near a temple. The goddess had taken the sister’s spirit in her care. My client was being asked to give a gold ornament and a sweet dish of rice and milk to the goddess. As my client too saw the same visions she happily did as required. Her sister’s soul connected to her briefly before moving onto a new life, bringing my client the deep joy of Karma balanced.

In all these years, I have seen only one example of a heavy-duty karmic relationship. Two friends in this life. They have been with each other in every possible way in several lives, father-daughter, mother-son, husband-wife, brothers together, sanyasis together, brother-sister, doctor/patient, teacher/student, master/servant etc and have lost and found each other in every combination. It is quite strange for them in this life. They keep seeing new memories from their past lives very frequently which then have to be resolved by conscious effort. But as they heal from every memory, their spiritual growth accelerates. They can neither live with each other nor cannot live without each other. Both have more than regular abilities to perceive and use energy. Possibly there is a very deep love between them. They have their a Rahu-Ketu and Ketu-Rahu synastry in their birth charts D1 and in the Navamsha D9. They are a very interesting study sample.

These examples may seem quite interesting reading, maybe like a story. But each vision from the past has been an emotional experience of release and growth for the person experiencing them.

I do not advocate hypnotic trances, I feel it to be a forced violation of the integrity of the sub-conscious. There are hypnotists who perform past life regressions and can retrieve information from the sub-conscious. But then what can you do with this information? And what if you see more than you should and wake up with a new more horrifying memory? Your sub-conscious is the Real You, and is your higher self. It provides you answers in the form of ‘instinct’ or ‘gut-feel’ when you need it. Forcing it will result in an unregulated or even dangerous flow of information. This may over-whelm the conscious self and literally shut it down. In a hypnotic trance the conscious self/ gate-keeper has been removed and you experience the events of the past again. Why should you? You have already experienced it once, why relive them? And remember you are not that person from the past who had experienced that issue. You are a different person in this life with new perspective of seeing things. (Both your incarnations have different D-1 birth charts). E.g. In a past life you got beheaded, maybe it was routine in that life’s context, the French guillotine. Now, if your present self sees that event and feels your neck get cut and sees your head rolling on the ground, it will 100% create new traumas.

However there are some typical cases especially when the client has some blocks in his spiritual practice. As I have mentioned earlier, the energies generated in deep Dhyan can literally ‘burn’ Karma. But sometimes there are Karmas of such intensity that they cannot be ‘burnt’. They have to be consciously resolved and balanced. Such blocks are a result of extremely deep seated emotions. So in cases where I feel that the issue can be resolved only by delving into the past lives, I use the birth chart, the D-9 chart then the Prashna Kundali of the present moment. Generally I get my answer from these charts. But if not then I use either of the following,

1. Guided mediation – it is a very gentle method of finding the solutions. I never go searching for the problems of the past life. Instead of reliving the problems and the traumas, search for the solutions. This is not hypnosis, the client is just relaxed so that the sub-conscious gives him the solutions and the healing energies that he needs.
2. Tarot cards – If I feel that the client is too upset to focus, I use Tarot cards. I ask the Universe to show me the images through the cards which I can use to counsel the client. This also helps the client but puts an additional burden on me as I have to ‘see’ and then explain.

So all those who are chasing twin flames and soul mates understand this, you have lived the past and its gone. Remembering the past (post here) is of no real value unless you can integrate the experiences and its learning lessons in your current manifestation. If you feel that you need to know the reason for your suffering and only then can you heal yourself, then you are in for some serious unnecessary mental/ emotional suffering.

So trust Karma, whatever you have done will come around, you have sown and you will reap. The timing is as per the Laws of Karma. It may be good or bad, but it is your action, not anyone else’s. If you cannot trust Karma then at least trust your Higher Self, your D-9 Navamsha.

For the average person there is no need to delve into the past lives, doing so will create more problems than it will solve.